~Some Clips of the trip~
Videos taken with Canon Digital Elph SD800
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, June 01, 2007
CHINESE COMPANY PROFILE SUMMARY
The following is a list of companies which our MBA program will visit in China 
Additionally, there are some questions which will be asked to their managers.
Additionally, there are some questions which will be asked to their managers.
_____________________________________________________________
http://www.zhku.edu.cn/english/english.htm
Located on the south bank of the Zhujiang (
How does your ESL teaching program compare to that of other Chinese universities?
What is the most distinguished award or faculty member accomplishment at Zhongkai?
What innovations has the sub-tropical gardening research program discovered?
Winglok Textile Factory
http://www.gzpyyl.cn
This textile factory manufactures shirts, and other apparel for men and women. The company sells its products in
It appears as if your company was convicted or excluded from entry into the
How does your company prevent countries like the
VTREK Audio and Video Products
http://www.elec-vtrek.com
This Audio/Video company was established in 1999 in
What sets your company apart from the heavy competition in the AV industry?
What new technologies have you developed, and how you advertise your products?
How much of your budget is dedicated to R&D and what is the procedure for coming up with a new devise?
Pegasus Footwear Company
http://www.pegasusshoes.com/
This
How do you keep costs competitive with other Asian shoe companies?
How would an American Entrepreneur enter the market designing apparel and shoes in
Producing over a billion shoes a year, what types of environmental standards does your company have in place?
Macau Polytechnic Institute
http://www.ipm.edu.mo
This
As a relatively new University what does your institution need to do to become a distinguished center of education?
What is the future of Macau Polytechnic Institute? What are the long-term goals of the University?
Do you recruit many students outside of
Sands Casino
http://www.sands.com.mo
The Sands Casino is the first western-operated gaming and entertainment destination in the People’s Republic of
How does a western-operated casino differ from one run by people from an eastern-operated casino?
How does Sands distinguish itself from other casinos in
Why is Macau the only part of
New Century Casino
http://www.newcenturyhotel-macau.com
The New Century Casino hotel is an exclusive international 5-star entertainment & leisure complex on the
Why isn’t Poker offered in your casino?
What type of players play your VIP high-roller baccarat?
What type of security measures do you have within your hotel/casino, and what happens to prosecuted thieves/cheats within your casino?
http://www.wynnmacau.com/
Opened in
Future expansion will add 135,000 square feet of casino space and more dining and retail space. They also have plans to include a theater and a spectacular front feature attraction. After the expansion they will have roughly 1,280 slot machines and 420 table games.
How much of your casino revenue is taxed by the Chinese government?
How does your per-person profits compare with your casinos located in
Has the government approved your expansion on the Cotai Strip? How does this process work?
Lisboa Casino
http://hotelisboa.com
Known as the "Monte Carlo of the Orient”, the Hotel Lisbosa/Casino is one of Asia’s finest casino hotels, boasting 15 acclaimed restaurants, 24 hour entertainment all under the roof of a glorious architectural designed building. The Casino is owned by Stanley Ho, who is the wealthiest person in Macau, and one of the wealthiest in
How has Ho designed his business to be successful and competitive against other casinos?
How does the casino market in Asia compare to the
How does the government effect operation of your hotel, and how does this affect your operations?
International game Technology
http://www.igt.com/au
The IGT is a slot machine manufacturer with headquarters in
Have you considered an alliance with your recently acquired companies before you completed the take-over?
Who gets to pick the television or movies for your slot machines, and how much do you payoff these companies for use of their name and brand?
How has the online gambling industry affected your business?
Shenzhen
Wal-Mart Global
Wal-Mart Global Procurement Services are used to manage the organizations direct import business deals and handle their direct purchasing. They identify new products, new suppliers and they build partnerships with their existing partners. Wal-Mart employee’s business development and supplier alignment teams to help guide world class suppliers to give the best value to their customers. Additionally, they have teams working with trade relations and global transport to keep ahead of changing international laws and simplify their global supply chain.
When do you decide whether to choose a company which is more environmentally sound, versus saving a few pennies per transaction?
Does Wal-Mart model their Ethical Standards to another company? Is there a regulatory agency making sure ethics are environmental issues are taken into consideration in
Why was your
http://ytport.com
Shenzhen Yantian Port Logistics Co focuses on operating warehouses and container yard, in addition seeking further development in other logistics business areas. At present, YPL has three bonded warehouses with a total operation area of 36,000 m2, a customs supervisory warehouse and four general empty container yards. In the future YPL has a plan to expand by constructing a Modern Logistics. Their main business involves in logistics related business including warehousing, container yards, consolidation of export cargo, distribution of import cargo, customs clearance for newly-manufactured containers, simple processing, transportation, customs clearance and quarantine, and customs documents processing.
When will
How will YPL distinguish itself from other competing ports and port authority companies?
What is the company doing to promote the development of the Yantian port?
Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall
The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall has a total floor space of 19 thousand square meters. It fully displays the achievements of
How much of the future
Who is the most respected Chinese painter? Did European artists have any exposure to early Chinese artists/craftsman which is reflected in their artwork?
Who appoints the architects who decide upon the buildings and future of
http://www.shanghaimuseum.net/
This museum possesses a collection of 120,000 precious works of art with collections of ancient Chinese bronze, ceramics, painting and calligraphy is specially celebrated in the world.
Founded and first open to the public in 1952 the museum developed very quickly in aspects of acquisition, conservation, research, exhibition, education and cultural exchanges with other institutes. In 1992, the museum moved because the
What is the most prized piece of artwork inside the museum?
Why was the museum moved?
What is the oldest artifact which the museum holds?
KPMG
http://www.kpmg.com.cn/
KPMG’s
How much of your business comes from foreign investors, as oppose to domestically within
What kind of sustainable accounting principals are at place in KPMG China?
How does the auditing process compare in
Starbucks
http://www.starbucks.com
Named after a character in the novel Moby Dick, Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world. The business is based in the
Why were there reports in early 2007, that Starbucks might be forced to withdraw from the
Does Starbucks use GIS (Geographic Information Systems) techniques to determine the best location for their new shops?
How does Starbucks prevent their company from becoming an eyesore for residents of
Callison Architecture
http://www.callison.com
Callison is an architecture company which provides planning and design services to retail, hospitality, mixed-use, healthcare and corporate clients throughout the world. They are presently ranked as the world’s top retail architect, specializing in graphic, interior, fixture and sustainable design. The company focuses their efforts on understanding market dynamics, which allows them to determine what to build, not just how to design it. Bringing business knowledge and design creativity brings excellence to their architecture firm. Based in
What are some of the sustainable architectural design projects currently in place at Callison?
As a firm which prizes creativity how do they hire/find these types of people?
How is building sustainability changing the architectural industry, and how is Callison guiding the way?
CF Racing
http://www.cfracing.cn
Based out of
Has CF looked into using eco-friendly designs to appeal to the younger environmentally friendly consumer?
What is CF’s strategy for future expansion?
Augmentum
http://www.augmentum.com
Augmentum is a company which offers software solutions services and IT services for Fortune 500 companies. The business also creates product development services to software companies, with teams who developing complex software themselves. They are unique because they develop software from people who have outsourced development for their own most complex, most important, and most profitable products and solutions. They work with companies such as Intel and Microsoft building software that gives consumers enabling abilities.
How do you overcome trust issues being an outsourcing company dealing with large American firms?
Explain what your company culture like?
How do you compete with Indian outsourcing companies?
http://www.sipac.gov.cn
The
After occurring a loss of nearly $90 million (
Has
How much does the industrial park pollute, and how do you regulate the damage?
What are the most profitable products manufactured in your industrial park?
Carrefour
http://www.carrefour.com.cn/
This French retailing giant offers top quality items at discount prices. They make products ranging from clothing to household goods such as T-shirts, skirts, jeans, trousers, underwear, shoes, towels and bedding. They have headquarters in
Their ‘First Line’ brand offers inexpensive kitchen appliances, audio, video and accessories, whereas their ‘Quality Line’ offers high quality and safety guaranteed fresh products such as pork, salmon, apples and oranges.
How do your company’s sales of such a diverse range of products help your profitability?
What will be the next move for expansion within Carefour?
Doesn’t four mean death in Chinese? How did you come up with the name for the company?
21 Manager
http://www.21manager.com
21 Manager hosts a website where managers from
On their website managers discuss recent business studies and they can exchange book recommendations and managerial suggestions. They also have job recruitment on their website.
Have you considered making your website in English, for increased business?
How do you generate revenue if your website is free?
Center for International Business and Ethics (CIBE)
http://www.cibe.org.cn
Located at
What is CIBE’s point of view about punishment when ethical issues are broken?
What organizations in
How do you convince a person that being ethical is more important than being profitable?
Thompson
http://www.thompson.com
Thompson is a publishing group starting in 1972 which provides professionals in business, government, law and academia the most authoritative, timely and practical guidance available. They provide tracking, and complying with, the dynamic regulatory mandates facing their organizations in a variety of areas. Some of the areas which they offer services in are with pensions and benefits, grants seeking, grants management, health care and with environment issues.
Which area of publication is seeing the most change and why?
How does Thompson keep such a healthy customer/ relationship?
How does Thomson keep a competitive edge over similar companies?
Lenvo
http://www.lenvo.com
Lenovo is an international technology company which develops, manufactures and markets cutting-edge, reliable, high-quality PC products. With over 19,000 employees worldwide Lenvo gives extra value with professional services that provide customers around the world with smarter ways to be productive and competitive. The company’s success is based on whether customers are able to achieve their productivity goals. Starting in 1984 with 11 computer scientists in
Has donating computers to victims of the SARS epidemic in
How much can Lenovo save with relatively inexpensive labor by operating out of
What are the key techniques your company uses to keep such high market share of the Chinese PC market?
http://en.pku.edu.cn
Originally known as the Imperial University of Peking, the University was established in 1898. With 30 colleges, 12 departments, 93 undergraduate specialties, 199 specialties for Master's degrees and 173 specialties for PhDs, National Peking University it is currently ranked as the best university in Asia, (14th in the world). The university has one of the largest pools of international students in
Why doesn’t
What types of research is your university most famous for?
As an older establishment, what does
Friday, May 18, 2007
The World is Flat: Book Critique
The World is Flat highlights how, practically overnight our world has become so interconnected with modern technology that it functions on an even playing field. Competitors around the world now battle for jobs in
are having (and will continue to have) a greater impact on the near future. Friedman explains that the primary drivers flattening of our world occurred because of relatively new technologies such as the personal computers, the internet and fiber-optics. History combined with suggestions for the future of how to handle our new globalization make Friedman’s book a decent read.
Mr. Friedman simplifies his theory of the flattening of the world into ten main topics. Most of these topics are technology based such as the introduction of Netscape, workflow software, open/out and in-sourcing and supply chaining. He provides a history lesson, as he travels through the world explaining how much the world has changed practically overnight. This book seems to be mostly directed towards business minded individuals, yet it should be interesting to anyone who wants to preview the direction where our world is heading. While the world is becoming flatter, benefits are seen all over the world as some industries and communities are becoming better connected, more efficient and more prosperous. One major problem which Friedman fails to really identify is to provide solutions to the immense environmental problems which the flat world creates.
Friedman provides personal insight on the developing problems of the world and plays devils 
advocate attempting to ring out the questions that must be addressed. While the flatteners he described play an important role in understanding why our world is what it is today, I couldn’t help but notice how some of his examples were practically identical. Another weakness is Friedman’s failure to address the variety of readers who may be reading this book, and he also contradicts his original premise with the chapter ‘the Unflat World’. While he does provide alternative points of view to many of his arguments, I am not certain that individuals of different disciplines would agree so much with his book. Finally, Friedman’s book may be a disappointment if you have already read his previous book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, as he basically rehashes his main arguments in a longer edition (without as much emphasis on technology).
Friedman focuses much of his story-telling about how we will see 
to the fact that wealth doesn’t make it past three generations.
As the book puts it “
Now that ‘being green’ is becoming more mainstream, perhaps Friedman should update his
book to make a green edition? With globalization comes a heavy cost… In September of 2006 China's E.P.A reexamined their GDP and found out that health problems, environmental degradation and lost workdays from pollution had actually cost China $64 billion, or an estimated 10 percent of its total economic output for 2004. Luckily,
Friedman’s novel should be beneficial to anyone who wants to gain a grasp of the world without flying all over it as the author has done to collect insight for his book. Reading this book may not provide the answers to solve the problems associated with globalization but it presents many of the fundamental ideas which business people can use to catch up while they were asleep. I would recommend this book to anyone who is not familiar with globalization or those who are living in a university bubble.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Do the Chinese Surf?
It depends on what kind of surfing you’re talking about. What was once an industry influenced primarily by
Most of these Chinese boards are being stamped with expired logos from the past, such as The Realm or Canyon. Next time you’re at 
Costco look for one of these boards. All these boards are being hand-made, by Chinese shapers as oppose to machine produced. The ironic part…none of these Chinese shapers have ever surfed, nor have they ever visited the beach. While Chinese surfboard production does not represent a large part of the sales market yet, it surely will in the future as this new Asian growth is merely the tip of the spear. Further expansion into
While most MBA’s probably are too busy with business matters to get a board and go surfing,
this is an interesting phenomenon/opportunity that we’re seeing across most industries.
Who should determine whether Asia should be able to dump cheap products on
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Guns, Germs & Steel: Book Review
Jared Diamond’s book sets out to explain why civilizations developed and for what reasons. In a nutshell this review will help to explain why China was able to create a unified society early in history, and how they accomplished it. Being a professor in bio-geography, Diamond uses his background to explain how most early civilizations progressed from hunter gatherer societies into agriculture due to their location, and because of random developments. He argues how important the role of geography plays in the earth’s earliest inhabitants. Inevitably, those civilizations with larger land masses, larger domesticated animals and more fertile lands would have an edge on other civilizations and would later contribute to the power of today’s modern nations.
This book best serves an audience which appreciates taking a different viewpoint than most history accounts. By analyzing the environmental situation and geographical layout of the most primitive societies, it becomes perfectly clear why some progressed and gained technology, while others have only made minor adjustments in the previous centuries. I believe this book is useful to business students as it portrays a view of history from a scientific perspective which most readers normally would not recognize.
Some weaknesses in book include its explanations rely heavily on scientific thought. Some people who are highly religious and believe in creationism could have a great deal of problems dealing with this book’s central concepts. This is mainly due to the fact that the author uses evolution to explain why pivotal events occurred in history as oppose to creation by god. Additionally, Diamond goes out of his way to cover himself claiming he is not Eurocentric. Unfortunately, he does in some sense infer that Europeans were destined to rule the globe…by arguing that their germs, and domesticated animals helped Europe’s civilization grow faster than other civilizations. I could see how some would criticize this and may even find it offensive.
Focusing more on China, Diamond explains how China has been Chinese since the beginnings of the countries recorded history. Though most Americans view Chinese people as being genetically similar, the author points out how different areas of China are influenced by their neighboring societies such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Tibet and Nepal. It is interesting that China, due to it’s long history, has only eight main dialects, whereas regions relatively newer regions such as New Guinea has thousands of languages.
Diamond also focuses on how China is one of the birthplaces of plants and early domestication of
animals. Weather patterns also play a role in the formation of civilizations. For example, in the dryer northern regions of China millet would flourish, while in the southern wetter region of China rice prevailed. Animals which were able to be domesticated including the water buffalo, pigs, dogs and chickens also allowed China’s population to progress. While these animals helped China develop an early civilization, they lacked larger domestic animals. Diamond also emphasized how Eurasia is located on a east-west axis which allowed pivotal crops to be traded between these two immense continents.Interestingly enough, Diamond proposes that China’s size and diversity amongst its’ early animals may have been the origin of Europe’s bubonic plague. It will be interesting to see if
history will repeat itself and we will see another epidemic in the next century with third world country populations booming. It would surprise me if we saw an event similar to the plague sooner than later. Diamond also suggests a reason for the unification of China so early on was due to its river system, and lack of mountainous terrain which allowed for political and cultural unification. It’s interesting to think about how something such as geography (ie Mountain ranges, rivers, etc) play such an important role in all of human history. We can use this knowledge to forecast growth, anticipate problems which can be a valuable asset in business.Lastly, we can see how important writing was to the Chinese to spread power amongst its people. Transmitting knowledge thought the generations allows future generations to further develop and become more sophisticated. Additionally, travel through continents with this knowledge helped to spread civilization. Writing is known to exist in China nearly 3300 years ago and is thought to have evolved independently. While societies today recognize how important literacy can be, in ancient times there were restrictions of mass literacy amongst people, to prevent plots and organizations being formed to overthrow the government. Today, we can see similar restrictions with the proliferation of mass media, and the Internet. China hires thousands to patrol the Internet daily looking for citizens who have opposing views about the government.
I found it interesting how the author uses natural phenomenons such as location (on a north-south axis vs. a east-west axis) and native animals to derive conclusions about why things
are the way they are today. Never before have I come across a book which overlooks dates and important people, and focuses on the reasoning why these events occurred. To me, Diamonds reasoning makes perfect sense, and makes me question why our education system is focused so much on memorizing facts rather than recognizing the science behind events. Therefore, I find this book to be a perfect complement to further anyone’s understanding of history through connecting how our earth’s ecology, evolution, and geography can play a critical role in understanding history.Overall, I thought Diamond did an excellent job getting the point across and explaining a detailed template for answering Yali’s question…of why certain groups of people are why they are.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Placing People Before Profit?
Providing health care to over 1.3 billion people is a feat that doctors, hospitals and the Chinese government deal with daily. It seems that any single person able to make a significance difference in improving the health of thousands in any population should be lauded. While this is
the case for a Chinese doctor, Hu Weimin, he is also being shunned by hospitals for interfering with their profits. Dr. Hu is harmful to the hospital businesses in China because he provides widespread free advice on the most common treatable illnesses in his home region of the Hunan
the case for a Chinese doctor, Hu Weimin, he is also being shunned by hospitals for interfering with their profits. Dr. Hu is harmful to the hospital businesses in 
Currently it seems that some Chinese hospital management have a primary focus of commercial profit rather than public service. While hospitals recognize that they need reform, it is unfortunate that financial incentives bring corruption into these environments of healing. Bonuses are given to doctors who prescribe laser surgeries and certain Chinese & imported drugs. Doctors profit directly from this reward system, which provides a substantial part of their salary. A fateful byproduct of the greed stemming from doctors trying to make a better living includes the mis-prescription of drugs. Though this probably occurs from time to time in the
Since millions of Chinese can not afford health care it is critical that preventative medicine be more widespread. While Dr. Hu is hero leading the way, saving lives and substantial amounts of
revenue, he is also causing major headaches for hospitals. Perhaps hospitals should help Dr. Hu’s cause and create preventative programs to teach the masses easy ways to alleviate commonly treatable sicknesses. When do businesses go too far to make a buck? Should the government be policing these hospitals to minimize corruption?
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